Tenderness of pork m. longissimus thoracis et lumborum after accelerated boning. Part I. Effect of temperature conditioning

This research investigated the effect on tenderness and meat quality of temperature conditioning at 0, 7, 14 or 21 °C of pork longissimus muscle after accelerated boning (removal from the carcass within 30 min post slaughter). The conditioning temperature had no effect (P>0.05) on tenderness at the end of the conditioning period (i.e. at the onset of rigor) but had a significant effect (P<0.05) after the muscles were aged for four days at 2 °C. After aging, the muscles conditioned at 14 °C were more tender than muscles conditioned at the other three temperatures; the muscles conditioned at 0 °C were tougher than the muscles conditioned at the higher three temperatures. Conditioning at 14 °C produced muscles that had lighter surface colour and lower drip loss due to prevention of cold toughening which occurred at lower temperatures or protein denaturation at the higher temperatures.